Mammography is a noninvasive screening method for early detection of breast cancer. By pinpointing lesions as small as a few millimeters for further evaluation, mammography is an effective way to detect early-stage breast cancer, leading to increased treatment efficacy and decreased morbidity and mortality. The prevalence of mammography has led to increased follow-up evaluation including surgical biopsies of suspicious lesions or masses.
Among the diagnostic evaluation protocols, gross and microscopic pathological examination of excised suspicious tissues is routinely performed. This often consists of macroscopically examining the intact tissue, then histologically processing the tissue for subsequent microscopic evaluation of one or more stained serial sections. In addition, radiologic evaluation of the tissue, either in an intact form or in serial sections, may be performed.
In evaluating an excised tissue sample for the presence of malignant, pre-malignant or suspicious cells, it is useful if the tissue is maintained in an undistorted manner and in the exact orientation from which it was removed from the body. Maintaining tissue orientation permits a clinician to determine the extent of any malignancy that may be present; for example, if the tissue margins are free from malignant cells, the clinician is given greater assurance that the entire lesion was excised. This lessens the need for subsequent or more invasive surgery or other procedure. In contrast, if the tissue margins contain malignant, pre-malignant or suspicious cells, further surgery may be desirable to ensure that more or all of a mass is removed.
A variety of devices are available for securing and transporting such excised tissues for pathologic and/or radiologic evaluation. For example, tissue samples can be sandwiched and compressed between two plates, with the plates forming a grid for locating a mass within a tissue sample during subsequent radiological and pathological evaluation. As another example, tissue samples may be contained in carriers that have multiple compartments to contain core tissue samples as well as peripheral tissue samples to ensure the core tumor as well as the surrounding tissue is evaluated. As still another example, tissue samples may be contained in molds that vertically orient specimens prior to histological embedding and processing. None of these devices, however, minimize distortion of the tissue and maintain tissue orientation during transport and radiological and/or pathological evaluation so that, for example, accurate assessment of tissue margins may be made.